1. Area of Invention
The invention relates to a method of generating electrical power by extraction of potential energy from a deep water environment.
2. Prior Art
The desire to develop new methods of generating electricity has been a driving force throughout recent human history. At present, there are two main methods of generating electricity each with its own challenges: one uses fuel as the energy source and the other utilizes natural phenomena. Fuel-based energy generation has problems of cost of the fuel as well as the polluting byproducts of such fuel consumption. Exemplary fuels used as the energy source for power generation include coal, natural gas, nuclear fuel, and petro-chemicals. The challenges associated with using natural phenomena as an energy source vary with the technology used. For example, solar and wind forces do not produce energy in a predictable amount and such energy is often generated during off-peak consumer demand. Hydroelectric power provides a source of energy that can be harvested when needed, but the damming of bodies of water causes significant environmental harm, nor is it readily responsive to power grid demand geometries. Other natural phenomena used to produce energy, for example, geothermal, ocean waves, ocean thermal and ocean buoyancy, are expensive to build and operate relative to the amount of energy they produce.
There are a few researchers who have utilized the potential energy from the gravitational force upon deep water to create pressure differentials between deep water and a lower pressure vessel therein to produce useful work or energy.
Various efforts however have appeared in the past to attempt to harness the absolute pressure as well as associated potential energy associated with the extreme pressures which exist in deep water environments. Representative examples of these efforts appear in WIPO publication WO 2011/005215 to Lam; U.S. Pat. No. 7,291,936 (2007) to Robson; U.S. Pat. No. 4,181,455 (1981) to Stanwick; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,188,471 (2007) to Walters.
None of the above efforts have been commercially successful.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a deep water power generation system which responds to the long-felt need which, inter alia, is reflected is reflected in the deficiencies in the art cited above in achieving this objective.
My above-referenced application Ser. No. 13/749,460, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,749,086, was limited in its energy output due to the requirement that the water expelled at the south pole thereof optimally possess about twice the pressure of the ambient sea or deep water within which the system operated. The present invention presents a solution to this issue using, as a discharge reservoir, so-called saline aquifers that exist deep within many geological formations. The only other use of saline aquifers known to the inventor is for CO2 sequestration, an example of which appears in U.S. Pat. No. 8,523,487 (2011) to Georgiou et al.